I agree with most of what you say Flav. As aforementioned, aps go to merging brigades and creating some tank corps. I agree tank corps are not all that in 42, but they are more effective than tank brigades, which aren't effective at all.

That said my main concern is that I'm not going to have a lot of space to trade near Moscow, so I might need Guards Rifle Corps there to stiffen the defenses. A stack of 3 guards rifle corps will make me thin somewhere else, but if I need to hold a hex, then they're the best option I have.

I found the few Guard Rifle Corps I created (along with Tank Corps) useful. I am pretty certain I held Moscow because of them. I had six and when Marquo was pushing really hard I ended up creating 10 more.

The German army can hit in 2 spots not just one in 42. The single panzer ball in 42 is so yesterday because russian tactics have changed and so has game.

A small spearhead of mostly infantry can hit one area not far from the main attack(30 hexes), then the main attack can be shifted to the other spot in less then a turn.

Some times you can do a third if the russian player is stripping the front.

This doent mean you get a breakthrough every time, but over time there should be several weak areas.

It only takes the russian player not reacting quickly enough and the hole summer can snowball into 200 pocketed units( huge ap crunch) and the war is over. Because there is no way the Red Machine will be rebuilt until late 43 or early 44. The German army will be sitting dug in with 12 lines of forts and high morale before the march west starts.

ORIGINAL: notenome What we see in the game, for example with Tulius's game and M60's game, on the other hand, is multiple sustained axis of attack which leads to many Soviet players conceding.

Not sure what M60 has to say about it but hmm, in my case maybe the whole catastrophic thing was due to my OWN incompetence. I would not rule this out.

Still, yes, my opponent was able to strike in two places at least (in fact three, given that he was putting pressure on Moscow area).

If I am conceding it's simply because I can't see how I will be upgrading to Red Army 2.0, ergo, advancing towards the general area of Berlin might be a pipe dream (or at snail's pace in any case). Destroyed units => APs needed to rebuild Red Army => I CANNOT get this 2.0 thing => er, I cannot advance

Regards

What M60 has to say is that it has less to do with multiple attack Axis and more the frustration about this game primarily in two areas.

1. The ridiculous isolation rule that allow three guards rifle corps with 100,000 men to be vaporized in a week if surrounded by panzer regiments with a few dozen tanks. In my game with farfarer he did the same thing, just more troops were involved but the principle is the same. The same ridiculous rule that allow an isolated Leningrad to lose tens of thousands of defenders at the cost of a few hundred Germans. It's not the least bit realistic and turns this into a fancy game of pocket making from beginning to end. NEWSFLASH...In the real conflict there were Soviets units that fought and held out for weeks when surrounded in many instances. And it wasn't because they had an airbase in a hex either. So why do we have to have this insta-death rule? Is it to drive up the Soviet casualty rates in the name of game balance?

2. The fact that in winter of 42-43 many of my guards rifle corps with an MP of 8-10 can't launch a deliberate attack and move into the formerly controlled enemy hex if I win. So all the German does is keep moving back into the hex in his turn some cheap unit. Then even if I move up a follow on force from behind to occupy that hex, on the Axis turn I can't even hold a hex in blizzard with 3 rifle corps when I get counterattacked.

Regardless of what some folks talk about in terms of the unfairness of the Soviet withdrawal in 1941, the Axis is more than compensated by other factors. They aren't being forced to go seize the oil fields of the Caucasus. They can't suffer a Stalingrad defeat. They have the option to forgo Citadel in 1943 and have their fully loaded panzer armies just waiting for the Soviet offensive in reserve mode. They can turn the Luftwaffe into a flying gas station to extend their offensives. The Axis suffers few casualties if failing in an attack in early game while the Soviet suffers throughout the game when they fail.

Now we've thrown in reduced Soviet C&C limits, a smaller Soviet arms multiplier, a smaller Soviet manpower multiplier. And now Moscow is falling with regularity that I personally attribute to the fort nerf. All this in the name of game balance.

None of this is a slight towards any of my current or former opponents. I've been simply outplayed by them in a number of areas. But I'm convinced that the 1.06 PBEM version has now fully shifted to a point where the Axis has to be favored to at least keep the Soviets east of the pre-war borders by May of '45. Berlin is now a pipe dream. MichaelT is going to do his best to prove otherwise, but my money is still on the Axis.

1. Agreed, a gradual decline of the combat capabilities would be much better. It's nothing that hasn't been done before and like so many things in the game, I doesn't always pay to break from tradition and re-invent the wheel.

2. If you make it worth the effort, German players will go for the oil. As things stand, a point seriously defended by many Soviet players, what's the point of riksing a drive for the oil if it brings you zip return on investement?